The federal election is five fabulous five weeks away. I say fabulous weeks because the tales being told by Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott, the leaders respectively of Australia’s two major parties Labor and the Liberal/Coalition who are vying to become Prime Minister, seem bent on outdoing the tales of fabulists like Aesop – African; John Gay – English; and Hans Christian Andersen – Danish.

But there is a difference. While morality is the basis of the latters’ tales it is clear that what allegedly forms the basis of the formers’ tales is not morality but lust for power. This applies particularly to Rudd who, regardless of the fact that earlier he used it to justify the carton tax in his statement that Global Warming is the greatest moral challenge of our time, then allowed it to become prisoner of his lust for power when it became a political inconvenience.

Not that the major parties are alone in telling tall tales. There is a third party, The Greens, whose leader, Christine Milne, seems equally bent on power but whose tall tales have found limited acceptance among voters. And there are other small parties whose leaders share the hope of being Prime Minister. But despite hope springing eternal, at this election their hope is running last. Last but not least are the Independents or ‘Gadflies’ as described by Socrates to Plato as uncomfortable goads to the Athenian political scene which he compared to a slow and dimwitted horse, who do the same to the power seekers.

More to the point: the saying ‘you’ve got to speculate to accumulate’ is not a fable but a phrase that describes people whose capital is ambition and intelligence that they use to speculate. It is the speculation of people such as this this describes that has been the source of Australia’s growth and prosperity.

After examining the policies of the various parties it seemed to me the policies of the Liberal/Coalition come closest to that of the people who speculated to accumulate and led Australia down the twin paths of growth and prosperity. On the other hand, many Labor politicians seem to think that all they needed to do was convince gullible people (voters) to let them spend their money on grand plans that would take them on a magic carpet ride to a life if not of ease, then of comfort.

So you’re not gullible you say. Well I hope not, but in the days and weeks after the Federal Election, Saturday 7th September, it will be too late to say I knew the promises sounded too good to be true. However, they will face the harsh reality that the promises were worthless and that the magic carpet will never take off but stay firmly grounded in the hanger that serves as the very large Museum of Political Promises. Indeed, as they will find out, the only things that will take off will be the politicians who made the promises.

With regard to this election and politicians’ promises which of the two, Tony Abbott or Kevin Rudd will take off. With respect to Mr Abbott, will he be the politician to take off. If he is, he will merit a paraphrase of Lady Bracknell’s famous saying: To lose one election, Mr Abbot, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.

But if it is Mr Rudd who takes off what will he merit? Now that opens up a galaxy of ideas. Being host of Tell the Truth, a new TV show, springs to mind. And no doubt rederswill have many others. If you have, make a comment.

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This article has been written in response to a request from a Florida reader who, unlike me, believes Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is the driver of climate change.

Man’s innovation will save the world, not a carbon tax

The International Panel on Climate Change heads in the clouds, say a carbon tax would not be necessary if countries stopped using fossil fuels to produce, energy, heat, food and many other things considered essential for life. To achieve their ends they would stop the use of fossil fuels because they cause CO2, a greenhouse gas that they say contributes to global warming and cause cataclysmic and catastrophic events that will make much of the world uninhabitable. Speaking plainly, they are prophets of doom.

As prophets of doom they scorn the views of people who don’t agree with them cast them as deniers of climate science. Like zealots they would deny to others the right to express their opinions while saying anything they liked, true and false, about those opinions.

This is the tactic religious zealots used against two famous sceptics, Copernicus and Galileo, whose scepticism was later shown to be right. In the process of not even considering their ideas the zealots of the purported correct science caused harm to a great many people and also held back the cause of science and reason.

In my view the fears generated by the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) zealots are similar to the fears generated in the public by the advice dished out by unscrupulous religious at the time of Copernicus and Galileo. If you don’t follow our advice you will be doomed to a fate worse than death. The AGW movement make the same predictions.

Indeed AGW has become religion with a hierarchy of climate scientist who pay obeisance to The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This organisation, which is part of the International Church of Bureaucracy known as the United Nations, headed by international bureaucrat, Rajendra K. Pachauri, has a carbon tax as one of its commandments.

Unfortunately, the IPCC, despite it being a UN subsidiary, seems to have little control over the various plans of members for a carbon tax. It also seems to have little control over its published material so much so that it has had to admit that some recent reports it published on Global Warming were inaccurate.

That apart the reader’s request came at an opportune time as Australia is in the middle of a pre-election campaign much of which much is centred round a carbon tax which, in a sense, puts Climate Change into its proper place. Carbon taxes are also in the political spectrum of other countries which should be a warning to voters everywhere that they should examine very carefully any policy relating to carbon tax. Indeed before the last Australian election the Prime Minister at the time said there would be no such thing as a carbon tax then went on to impose what would be the highest carbon tax in the world.

With an election already scheduled following the PM’s deposing as leader by the former PM whom she deposed, the rebadged PM announced, in a statement that can only be described as a political damascene conversion on the way to polls, a reduction would be made in the carbon tax. The reason: to reduce the burden on families.

Speaking personally, I think these statements were made in an effort to keep his personal high popularity rating in the opinion polls as he strives to remain PM.

Shortly after the announcement of the carbon tax reduction the PM then announced a series of ‘efficiency’ measures, a kind of what I’ve lost on the roundabout I’ll gain on the swings action, to recover budget money lost by the carbon tax reduction. Not that the carbon tax will disappear altogether. A carbon tax in another style, an emissions trading scheme, is to be introduced in 2014.

Finally, let me disabuse everybody of the idea that I don’t believe in global warming: I do! What I don’t believe in, are the predictions of global warming alarmists. I subscribe to the view that fear is a poor system of getting people to believe in anything apart from which I believe that if there is to be such an event as doomsday I think it will arrive without warning.

I also think it likely that our descendants, if we are lucky enough to have any will be living elsewhere in the universe on another planet far from earth.

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The following article is addressed to young people who, claim climate change alarmists, are very worried about the future of the planet. The only reply I can give to that is: when I was a young man one of my main worries was the disappearance of young women from my usual haunts. So if the young today are worried about the planet’s future I’d like to know from them where they get the information that worries them, from other than that put out by alarmists.

Another question: when the alarmists talk about the young what do they mean by young? Do they mean 16, 18, 20, 22, 24 0r 26 or is young only in comparison to themselves? That apart, what do the alarmists mean when they say the science of climate change is settled? Does it mean that no further examination of their proposition is needed?

I can only say that these people are strange scientists; science is never settled. Indeed, if over the ages people had taken the view that science could be settled, some of the greatest innovations in the world today would have some of the world’s greatest legendary engineering, medical, astronomical and myriad other scientists – think Copernicus, Galileo, Newton – gasping in amazement.

That these scientists became legends is due to the fact that like all great scientists, they were always sceptical about claims from alchemists and other so called scientists that they had discovered the elixir of life or how to transmute base metals into gold.

Not a physicist, or engineer or scientist but just an ‘ordinary (whatever that means) member of the community it is unlikely that at my late stage in life, and much as I am a sceptic it is unlikely that I will invent or discover something that will put me into the legendary category.

But I have made it my business to read as much history as I can about how the weather has changed over millenniums – apart from personal experience of variable weather over my lifetime. From my reading I have come to the conclusion that mother-nature has always determined, and still does, without recourse to advice from the IPCC or the Australian Climate Commission, when and climate change will occur.

I have concluded also that climate change has been a constant in the life of planet earth, and that AGW (anthropogenic global warming) has had little to do with it.

But the strangest thing of all is that the very people who see themselves as being the ‘experts’ at the summit of climate change science have done little else except promote the cure of AGW as a range of equipment that will produce the very thing they say they want to cure. If they wanted to walk in the footsteps of the legendary scientists, they would be spending their efforts bringing to fruition as soon as possible, commercial nuclear fusion plants that will generate clean and limitless power not only in Australia but across the world.

Like many others, however, I suspect many of them are so ambitious to be seen as saviours of the planet that they put their own overweening ambitions before the saving of the planet and its various communities.

The problem of course is as usual, that some of the IPCC scientists and Climate Change Commission suckle on the money teats of various Government funding bodies because their vanity will not allow them to be seen as less than best.

But the strangest thing to me is the absence of any mainstream media reports about how the Particle Physicists at the ANU are helping fusion stride towards being one of the main cures for global warming. Rarely, indeed, are they ever interviewed.

On the other hand economists and non-scientists members of green and environmental groups are often interviewed with the latter talking about the danger of nuclear energy. They are perpetrating a fraud, because the dangerous nuclear energy is fission not fusion- let me say it again: FUSION!

Their alternative argument is that fusion will not be available until the year 2100 – if ever. I shall be polite and say Balderdash. Clearly they do not keep up with fusion development or they would never say fusion energy is nothing but a dream.

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It seems to me after forty four years of listening to the ABC for up to date news and opinions about issues facing the community in which I lived, of which 39 years have been spent in Canberra., that the ABC is denying the right of people whose opinion seems to be at odds with some in the ABC, to make their views known. In a sense the ABC seems to have stopped being Your ABC and has become the property of ABC staff making it: ‘Their ABC.’

This comment is made because of what seems to me the ABC’s abuse of its role as the community broadcaster following the Community Forum in Canberra held Monday evening 17 June held in the Playhouse Theatre, Canberra Theatre Centre to find out community views on the Australian Climate Commission’s report on global warming and climate change.

On Tuesday 18th June, Sarah Clarke the ABC’s national environment and science correspondent reported the Forum on both ABC radio and television but the only people interviewed were alarmist global warmers with their dire climate change predictions. Alternative views were nowhere to be heard.

I make this comment because this is the pattern the ABC seems to be adopting on the subject of climate change thus it came as no surprise when on Tuesday, Professor Will Steffen from the Australian National University Canberra and Member of the Commission was interviewed.

That apart, the ABC’s continued reporting in this manner reminds me of Goebbels who said the best way to get people to adopt your views is by telling them long enough and often enough what they are. This is the best way to describe the ABC’s reporting of global warming and climate change and better described as not so much informing the community but brainwashing the community.

The community at large would not be aware that among the people at odds with the Commission and its members, are scientists, engineers, economists, academics who make or have made their living by using their intelligence to make the world a better place. Yes, they are sceptical of the information the Climate Commission uses to substantiate its views. But aren’t true scientists sceptics? Indeed, over the centuries had there been no sceptics the world today would be in the parlous state predicted by the alarmists.

As parents and grandparents these people are as concerned about the future of the planet as Members of the Commission. I am one of those parents but not, unfortunately, a grandparent, scientist, engineer or economist. Apart from disabled, the only other appellation I can add to my name apart from an Australian honour, is Australian Tourism Research Institute Fellow Rtd, an industry that would be seriously affected if the alarmist predictions of the Commission and, I must add, the predictions of the Inter – Governmental Panel on Climate change came true.

It is unfortunate that the ABC, with its capacity to provide the community at large with information about the differing arguments about global warming and climate change seems to have adopted the paternal position: we know best. The ABC, it seems to me, has to some extent lost its role as broadcaster and source of information for the public. Indeed, at times it is almost indistinguishable from commercial radio and television. Worse, many of its staff exhibit clear signs of supporting the philosophy of a particular party.

A final comment. The ABC should stop being the cathedral of environmentalism from whose pulpit sermons about the effects of global warming and climate change are regularly delivered and return to being ‘Your ABC.’

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Much as I would like to be able to say otherwise, I am not a polymath. Truth be known, my school record was more poly than math, a condition that has remained constant during the years since leaving my schooldays behind and finding myself sitting here at the keyboard scratching my head in the hope that it will it will inspire the words needed for a new blog.

It’s not that I haven’t got the words. I have but they are all stored away in my mind in a jumble that takes a long time to unscramble. If you haven’t got this problem, count yourself lucky. And if you believe in the power of prayer I suggest you keep on the good side of the mechanic looking after the system that produces the power.

But let me add one qualification: make sure the mechanic is good at unscrambling problems, as it would be no good if in sending you an answer if it turned out to be problem that still needed answering which is what happened to me when watching Professor Ian Lowe AO, President of the Australian Conservation Foundation who has a plethora of academic qualifications, give an address at Australia’s National Press Club, Canberra, today.

Credit where it’s due: his address to the assembled throng while not stirring was eloquent. In his address he laid out the problems, as he saw them, of the problems the world was facing if his words weren’t taken seriously. Unfortunately journalists in attendance were few in number although their absence was more than made up for by conservationists.

I shall not take up your time by laying out the subjects about which Professor Lowe waxed eloquent. If you’re interested in them and you’ve got access to the internet just log on to Google and you’ll see them. Fortunately, during question time at the end of the Professor’s speech a well – known journalist asked the Professor a question which he acknowledged with smile and a suggestion that no doubt the journalist thought some of his ideas cuckoo.

Depending on your point of view about global warming and various other concerns voiced by the Professor that he labelled the GEC (Global Environmental Collapse) you might agree with the journalist. But disagree or not with the Professor, I can see the GEC phrase being worked to death by environmentalists as they paint the picture of damage allegedly done to the environment by people whose views they oppose.

Environment apart, why is that people prominent in academia, business, the bureaucracy and politics have adopted the word “ordinary” to describe most of the community. Doing so, and whether intentional or not, suggests they see themselves as people who are extra ordinary and whose views the community should accept before all others.

Without wishing to plagiarise Professor Lowe and his use of cuckoo, I’d like to suggest that when the people I’ve mentioned in the last paragraph use the word ordinary they be met with the call of the “Laughing Kookaburra.“ You can use the vernacular name if you wish.

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More people waste energy in rushing about trying to persuade Australians other than those who, like me, don’t think global warming and climate change is anthropogenic. Instead, they say we should stop using fossil fuels and produce energy using alternatives.

Unfortunately their proposed alternatives, solar panels, wave barrages, wind turbines et al, are incapable of producing the base load power necessary to supply electricity to meet the demands of industry and domestic markets.

This is not to say that these alternative sources of electricity should not be developed even if they cannot produce the necessary amount of base load power. They could be used to supply electricity to some places where it might be impractical to build power stations to supply the industrial and domestic market.

No doubt over time, their power output would be improved but it will never improve to the extent that it will be able to meet the base load power needs of expanding communities. That apart, the replacement cost of new equipment would be high.

All of these facts are known, yet across the world some people are constantly engaged in trying to persuade governments to legislate for the reduction in the use of fossil fuels and also offer industry incentives to manufacture this alternative energy equipment. It seems to escape their notice that manufacturers will need fossil fuels to manufacture this equipment.

In Australia, a country that prides itself on looking over the horizon at the future, this seems strange thinking. It is the kind of thinking indulged in by people with a preference for the past; people who think we should be satisfied with what we’ve got; and people who use their children and grandchildren as excuses to keep the future at bay.

Not for them the use of nuclear energy. They become carbon copies of Canute stemming the ocean’s tide; they become modern Canutes stemming the tide of progress. They are people who do not seem to understand the past they long for can never return; that the world will keep changing; and that soon they will be part of the past.

With regard to global warming and climate change, these same people say the science is settled yet at the same time refuse to accept that science says nuclear energy, in the shape of nuclear fusion, is the energy of the future. Their attitude would be understandable if it was likely they were going to be part of that future.

Sadly, most of them won’t. Indeed most of them are still locked into the scenes of death and destruction caused by caused accidents to nuclear fission plants at Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima and Windscale. They use these scenes as a shield in the same way as scoundrels use patriotism.

At the same time, in their efforts to keep the aura of fear with which they have surrounded nuclear energy, they have focussed on nuclear fission: they rarely if ever mention fusion. And yet fusion, once developed will provide them with what they value most: cheap, waste free, clean and limitless safe energy.

Many scientists working in the field of global warming and climate change, plus people in the Green movement are sceptical about fusion. The former should know better because science, a sceptical discipline, has produced some of the world’s greatest benefits.

That said, it is pleasing to know that in the Cadarache forest in Provence, France, a group comprising some of the world’s greatest science sceptics are gathered together to prove through Iter (the way in Latin) a $13 billion reactor, that fusion is both feasible and practical. Contrary to the predictions of the doomsayers, they are confident of proving their point.

Building the reactor is already under way but after completion it will take at least a further five years of testing before the reactor will be seeded with plasma, a mix of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium that will drive the nuclear fusion reaction.

They say that once proved, a realistic time span to develop commercial reactors would be post 2050. Perhaps if the people determined to foist second rate alternative energy on the world started lobbying government to push for speedier development of fusion, that time could be reduced.

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I think ‘hits his straps’ an apt way to describe public intellectual Professor Clive Hamilton’s recent statement about global warming. The phrase sprang to mind when I received a short e-mail from a sceptic that said ‘Right now (9.20am Sunday 27 April so13) Professor Hamilton is on ABC Radio National (846) advocating a campaign of civil disobedience to force people to believe in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming!

Horses as you know have four walking styles – walk, canter, trot and gallop. Over the years Dr Hamilton in his Green racing colours, has adopted each of the four styles when inveighing against people who do not share his view about global warming.

Indeed with his call for civil disobedience not only has Professor Hamilton hit his straps he seems to have become an environmental zealot. His statement is reminiscent of those religious zealots who, over the centuries, predicted the world was doomed if both sceptics and unthinking unbelievers did not abandon the use of fossil fuels.

Like all zealots, Professor Hamilton’ is dogmatic about global warming: he and people who think like him are right; everybody else is wrong. He argues also that to believe anything else is to deny climate change truth and engage in wishful thinking.

Among Professor Hamilton’s many qualifications, although he seems to have spent most of his time working in the political field like many other oracles on global warming, are history, psychology, pure mathematics and economics. Like other people of Green political convictions and despite his many qualifications Professors Hamilton’s vision of the future seems one dimensional: doom clouds his horizon.

Helping to formulate that view is that I find it strange that a man who has spent a great deal of his working life in the political economic field seems blind to the fact that it is unlikely he and his fellow Green believers would be here today enjoying the fruits (read progress) grown by past wishful thinkers. Stranger still is the suggestion of the Greens that the landscape be polluted with monstrous wind turbines whose capacity to provide energy is limited and their suggesting that the roof of every house be covered with solar panels.

But perhaps the strangest thing of all is that I have yet to hear Green economists like Professor Hamilton, suggest that as doomsday approaches how will they save all species of fauna and flora current at the time. I wonder why? Perhaps it’s because their vision of the future is limited by their lack of imagination. Is there no wishful thinker like Noah among them? It seems not.

But of the people among them some are people of influence whom I would describe either as hard wired for alarm or hot gospellers for calamity and catastrophe. As unlike optimists as chalk is to cheese, they are perpetual pessimists who, having spent so much time opposing sensible ideas about global warming from informed sceptics, of whom there are many, that they now can’t see the wood for the trees.

Let me end by saying that despite the doom laden predictions of zealots from the past, who allegedly had God on their side, the world is still with us.